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DH is finally home! The really annoying thing is that the bureacracy and paperwork around it was completely screwed up. Long story short, DH stopped getting paid mid-September (even though his deployment ended Oct. 31). After a month and a half of struggle, he finally got a paycheck on Nov. 1, but there's still things missing. The good part of all that is that we didn't need the money immediately, and it'll actually come in handy now that DH is home and will be out of work for...
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So last Sunday, a friend of mine from my old area came up for the day with her mom and her 23 year old son. This particular friend and I met when we were in the same 3rd grade class. That's been a few years back at this point! She is a country girl; grew up in the country, has horses, etc.

They came in the late morning and stayed until early evening. It was her first time up here to visit me. We had a very pleasant day.

Yesterday morning, she texted me that she and her...
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Day three for me and it’s been a no spend day. I also stayed away from sodas today 🥤 😃.

Regarding the consulting gig, I’ve managed to crank out three policies and a non-compete agreement. Thursday I go in for my weekly check in, hopefully things will go well. I’m keeping a spread sheet of my time, and mileage.

Friday, I have a HR conference, and looking forward to it. One, I always love learning, and two, I just need a day out of the office.

Health news,...
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I've been sending and extra $25 here and there to the escrow of one of our rental properties. Every year, there seems to be a shortfall due to the property taxes going up. Yesterday, I received a check from the mortgage company for $206 for a surplus on our escrow and our mortgage payment went down $26. I am going to continue paying the same amount and send the extra $26 to minimize any escrow shortage next year.


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My wife and I spent Friday-Monday out of town in National Harbor, MD, just outside of Washington, DC. We had a nice time just relaxing and spending time together. I had booked a hotel package that included a full buffet breakfast every day (not like a Holiday Inn Express buffet but a full buffet). It also included a $50/day resort credit toward food and drinks.

First night we had dinner at a great Mexican restaurant there. We've eaten there numerous times and it remains one...
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Well, I did my workout in the early evening instead of the morning, but I didn't time it right to get the free pizza. After I stretched my workout to ridiculous lengths, I just sat and waited for a while because the attendant told me the pizza was supposed to arrive at 6 pm. and it was already 6:05. At 6:15 it still wasn't there, and I felt conspicuous waiting, so I left.

I came home and had a hard-boiled egg.

No spending yesterday!

I got a letter from Allstate telling...
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While we continue to pay ourselves back for the car down payment we continue to send money to our savings goal. As of last month we are 35.2% complete.

October Big Goal Additions
Paycheck 10/1 $175.00
Paycheck 10/15 $175.00
Total Interest $188.52
Total $538.52
New YTD Big Goal Total $8,032.22
New Big Goal Total $71,017.67

October brings us to 35.5% of goal. Still heading in the right direction!
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We are paying ourselves back for money we put down on our daughter's car in May. I am putting all sources of extra funds towards that goal. Here's what I found in October:

US Bank $12.52
Chase Rewards $11.45
Amex Rewards $70.38
Boxed Amex Offer $15
ATM Rebate $3.00
Coop Rebate $8.99
eBay Sales $10.36
Pinecone Surveys $3.00
Extra travel funds $28.72
USAA Reward $1.00
Total $164.42

I think I earned a $25 Amazon gift card through Swagbucks, but it looks like I didn't...
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Here's the interest we earned on our cash savings last month:

FNBO $63.76
NFCU $124.73
USAA $0.03
Total $188.52

This money is saved towards our Big Goal. I will update that in another post. I think back to when we earned very small amounts of interest each month. I never once used that interest to pay debt, it has always been saved. It's a great habit that I am glad we established!

Are you tracking your interest? Do you save it or spend it?
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Yesterday was a great day, no spend day and no dining out.

I sold an item on Poshmark as well.

I have a question, do you all think they’ll be another recession? If so, what do you think will be the cause? I saw this question on Twitter and was wondering everyone’s thoughts.
I personally think it will be a recession caused by fear. I’ve noticed that the job search has slowed down, people are staying put, it also seems as though people are buying less. I don’t...
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Since October 19th our retirement has gained $1471.64. We only put in $220 every two weeks and the company matches 100% up to a point, so only $440 was contributions and matching in that time period. That is quite a huge gain in 2.5 weeks, a little over $1000. I know some of it was the IRA, but not near as much as was the 401K.

$14,255.93 Total in 401K
+_9,367.11 Total in IRA
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$23,623.04 New Balance

$25K is getting closer and closer. I cannot wait until...
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All our mortgage payments hit:

US: $759 to principal
UK1: $182
UK2: $39
UK3: $40

That's $1020 of debt paid.

Current household debt:
US Mortgage $374,953
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $29,421
UK Mortgage 2 $6,201
UK Mortgage 3 $6,531
TOTAL DEBT $426,106
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So I started the month at 44,270 words on my novel. The goal this month is to write 50,000 words and hopefully finish or come close to finishing this book. I got off to a slow start but am picking up speed. I did do some plotting and figuring out that I needed to insert a scene to make something make more sense and add a few sentences here and there for an additional character who hadn't been in an early scene. So that took a lot of skimming around the first day and I wrote...
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DK2 will finish high school in 2030. Woah typing that makes it real. I believe she'll be done (fingers crossed) in 2034. DH will be 56 turning 57 and I'll be around 55 depending on graduation date.

We have 14.5 years until we are done. I am freaked out a bit reading that. Based on the rule of 7 we should be able to double our investments 2x over. Since in theory your investments double every 7 years. By that rule we'd have a ridiculous amount of money.

I guess I feel...
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This works out to be a very busy week. Today was running a couple of errands and DH having his pre op appointment for his second cataract surgery. For the first eye, we had to pay $1500 for a special lens. Today the eye doctor said he didn't think this eye would need it. We had the money saved, but I can't say I'm super disappointed. I had taken the money out of savings and transferred to checking so we would have it. I'm glad some of it will be returned to savings.

A friend...
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My day started with luxuriously enjoying a little extra sleep. Then I got up and got the budget updated and ready for our belated November budget meeting. I was very happy to note that we were actually able to meet ALL the basic budget funding with $20 left over.

Our medical fund got very low though because we ran out of FSA money in September ... but now we have a new influx so we can rebuild the fund.

November will have a 3 paycheck month and 5 weekends for DH, plus...
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Trying this again. Hoping for a slightly calmer month? Absolutely not holding my breath.

I spent most of September trying to make headway on the household/chore front, digging out of a very big hole. October I got caught up on my professional education. Phew! I was more motivated on the work/professional front, so am circling back to household chores. Plus, I suppose this one reason I despise housework. You just get to do it all over again.

My initial plan was...
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Yesterday I got to the library a half hour before it opened. I didn't want to sit outside in the cold, so I walked to Panera and spent $2 on coffee so I could sit there.

I parked in the nearby garage where it's free if you get out within the hour. And I did.

I also sent $20 to Oregon son. Even though a new job is on the horizon, it's going to be very expensive for them to make this move.

My neighbor called me yesterday about a smell in the building. I told her I hadn't...
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Payday today...have all bills paid and have managed to put $2500 on the CC...half way to paying it off...hopefully by the end of the year!!
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The twins 1st birthday is this week so MO and I are just trying to survive. It's been awful leading up and we are both totally mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted.

I took the day off of work, and the day after as well to give myself a long weekend. I wasn't sure if I should as I will probably need distractions that day, but I think I have plenty of house work and FB Sales stuff to work on to keep me busy. Plus this way if I just want to go take a nap or just go...
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